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Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuang Zhou. But he didn't know if he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhuang Zhou. Between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.
— Zhuangzi, chapter 2 (Watson translation)
Ratio wakes up.
He is in the Dreampool. He looks around. His clothes are floating in the glowing water of the Pool - the room is empty aside from him, the door hopefully locked as he had left it, the air silent except for the sounds of the light bubbling of the dream liquid and his own breathing.
But I had just been in the lobby.
His brain works.
Defeat. Ena instead of Xipe. Order.
A second dream.
He sighs and lays back in the pool. The fact that he is awake and aware - cognito ergo sum - and conscious of having been trapped in Ena’s sweet dream is proof that he is, hopefully, in the real world now, and that the Astral Express has defeated the Harmonious Choir.
A saccharine delusion that had trapped even his pessimistic, incisive, doubtful mind. Ena and Sunday were truly formidable foes.
Or, perhaps, his rational side tells him, insistent on considering every logical possibility, as always, your heart was so weak, and the dream so sweet, that you did not wish to awaken.
What had his dream been about, again?
The images are already fading from his mind, as dreams often do when one wakes, but Ratio has a good memory - some of his most revelatory scientific breakthroughs have come to him after waking from a restless night of fantasy - so he is well-accustomed to the process of preserving dreams in one’s conscious mind.
He remembers.
It had been a collective dream. They had met in the lobby of the hotel. He had taken part in various negotiations about the future of Penacony. As Ena’s Dream, just like the Dreamscape, was a collective dream that mixed the true consciousnesses of everyone trapped within, the people he had met and the discussions they had engaged in were all, presumably, real, even if their basis was not.
Something niggles at his mind.
Not everyone. There had been a few who were not on Penacony, or even in the general vicinity of the planet.
He would have known, for instance, if the captain of the Xianzhou Loufu were one of the moving pieces in this war game.
He thinks about it. The Xianzhou was the previous stop of the Astral Express - he’d heard that one of their passengers had awakened to some past memory there, and that that passenger’s previous reincarnation had been close with Jing Yuan. Jing Yuan had awarded the Jade Abacus to the Express after their assistance to the Luofu. In a disaster like one on the scale of the Harmonious Order, where the safety of not only all the Nameless but everyone in the area of Penacony was under threat, of course the Express might have called upon that power.
But Jing Yuan was nowhere near Penacony. Ena’s Dream had no hold over his true consciousness.
Therefore, it stands to reason that the Jing Yuan in the sweet dream had not been the real Jing Yuan, but a projection of him, created by the Nameless’s perception of his character, his data in their minds, and their desire to call upon him to assist, perhaps influenced by Ena’s knowledge of the universe or Penacony’s memoria’s records of him, had he ever visited.
He strokes his chin, still simmering in the Dreampool. The feeling of liquid around him helps him think.
It is logical… but the unsettling feeling that he’s forgetting something is still there.
Has the IPC finished sharing all its thoughts? Then it’s our turn.
Our.
He freezes.
Someone else had been there.
Someone who had stood at his side.
Not an IPC member - not a Nameless - not someone of the Guild or the Hotel. Someone who should have had no connection to these events on Penacony whatsoever.
Organic life’s unrelenting search to understand the realm of inner spirituality is something I both admire and envy.
Screwllum. Why had Screwllum been there?
A tenseness rises in his chest.
Fear? Of what? Of the answer he might uncover?
Part of him shies away from this line of questioning. Another part, his pride, his scholar’s heart, his indomitable mind, continues along, inconsiderate. Vincit omnia veritas. The truth conquers all things.
The truth is pure and unchanging. It does not care about his fear. It does not look at him. That is why he loves it.
If he applies the same logic he had concluded to be true in Jing Yuan’s case, then, assuming Screwllum was nowhere near Penacony - which he considers to be true, he remembers, ‘Screwllum’ had not even appeared in person, instead showing himself in the form of a hologram - then ‘Screwllum’ was not Screwllum’s true consciousness. Instead, he was a figment of a collective imagination, a formation created by the concept of him in others’ minds, by their perceptions of him, by their desire to see him there.
But whose desire?
‘Screwllum’ had not shown himself to anyone else. He had come when Ratio called him. He had spoken fondly to the Trailblazer and Welt Yang, but both had seemed surprised to see him there - not the reactions of those who had subconsciously wished to see him there, who had brought his form to being from the strength of the feeling of want in their heart, like Dan Heng had by summoning Jing Yuan’s spectre.
All evidence points to one conclusion.
The truth looms over him, unchanging, unfeeling, pure and unfaltering.
Mine.
He remembers how he had called out for Screwllum, how Screwllum had appeared in a blink beside him, how he had ceded the floor to him, how he had called him by his name.
There is no other answer. The dream Screwllum was a product of Ratio’s desire to see him there.
Not to say his whole personality, the entirety of his character, everything he said and did, was sourced from Ratio’s subconscious - Ena’s Dream was a collective, after all. The Trailblazer, the Nameless, and undoubtedly some of the IPC and the Hotel staff have met Screwllum before, and Screwllum is a famous figure - Ena must have known of him, even if only as someone recognized by another Aeon. All of those perceptions may have fed into the memoria, into the Dream, and colored ‘Screwllum’’s characterization.
But there is no doubt that there is no one but Ratio who could have called upon him.
What had ‘Screwllum’ said?
After deliberations with my partners, we have decided to defer the progress of the Simulated Universe project, and instead assist the Intelligentsia Guild as technological consultants in the research of the Dreamscape and Memory Zone, so that these assets may be better used to serve humanity.
Defer the progress of the Simulated Universe? To Ratio’s waking mind now, the concept is laughable. How had he ever believed that? Even if Screwllum had desired it, Herta would not have stood for it. She is obsessed with that project. It probably means more to her than life itself. She would sooner cut all ties with Screwllum than put it on hold, even for a moment.
The question echoes in his mind.
How had he ever believed that?
He had stood there without a word. Perhaps he had been smiling. He had felt… content.
Desire.
The sweet dream.
Is that his sweet dream? To work side by side with Screwllum? To be respected as an equal by the members of the Genius Society? To bring to them a project so worthwhile they might finally recognize him?
The concept makes him feel ill. Had his desire for that been so great that Ena had successfully trapped him in a delusion with its promise?
Even as his stubborn heart rebels against the idea, he feels how it wavers.
It is true, his rational mind says. Even after all this time, you are still weak.
And out of all the geniuses, the one who had come to his side when he had desired it, when he had wished for it, when Ena had taken all of his deepest, darkest dreams and made them into a sickly sweet world to lose himself in, was Screwllum.
Is he any different from the version of himself in Ena’s Dream?
Even as he sits now, in reality, in the Dreampool, does he wish for Screwllum to appear at his side?
Does he want Screwllum to recognize him? Respect him? Observe him? Be fond of him? Desire him? See him?
Does he want Screwllum to give up everything else to be with him?
Our research endeavors.
His pride will not allow him to pursue that line of questioning any further.
He sits up slowly in the Dreampool. The viscous liquid slides off his arms without leaving any wetness. Slowly, slowly, he stands up, gets to his feet, feeling the dream fluid drip off him in thick rivulets, clinging to his skin in the same way that the sweet dream clings to his mind.
He is a realist. He is an intellectual. How could he allow himself to fall to the weakness of his own heart?